Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

When we’re sitting on a place at night, we like to avoid streetlights, not a problem on this block, since none of them were working. “Infrastructure of the whole damn country’s falling apart, big guy,” Bernie said. “Gonna end up living in caves.”

Wow! And I was hearing that for the very first time? But we could live in caves, no problem, me and Bernie. We’d been in caves, and also mines, plenty of times. Bernie loved exploring abandoned mines out in the desert, so when the infrastructure, whatever that was, finished falling apart maybe we’d be even happier. Hard to imagine, so I didn’t even try.

The door of Red Devil’s opened and out came a few women, none walking in straight lines. The ones in high heels took them off, which made them surprisingly short but didn’t help with the straight line problem. A taxi pulled over and they sort of fell in. After that a dude appeared, started heading one way, then changed his mind, and finally changed it again and went off in the original direction.

Lights started going out inside Red Devil’s and soon it was dark, except for the neon sign in the window. The door opened and Dina came out, wearing jeans and a halter top, and pushing a bike. She pulled down one of those metal screens, covering the whole front of Red Devil’s, and locked it in place. Then she got on the bike and pedaled away. The bike had a small flashing red light at the back, couldn’t have been easier to follow. We followed.

Had we ever tailed anyone on a bike before? Sure, and also people on skateboards, forklifts, golf carts, and once a roller coaster, maybe the worst day of my life. Bernie kept our own lights off, and we loafed along well back of Dina on her bike, real slow. The street was dark, the night was dark, and Bernie was in a dark mood: I could feel it. The only illumination was red and green, red from Dina’s flashing light and green from the dials on our dash. Bernie’s face was hard in that green light. Something was bothering him, but what? We weren’t in danger. In fact, weren’t we bringing it? Which was what we did at the Little Detective Agency, lots of fun even if we weren’t always paid.

We followed the flashing red light down the street, around a corner, and past some warehouses that were being fixed up for lofts, which I knew because Bernie had thought about investing in one, opting for the Hawaiian pants play instead at the last moment; actually after the last moment, leading to a nasty meeting with some developer dudes, but no harm done, Bernie said, because real estate tanked and we would have lost everything anyway. At least we still had the Hawaiian pants in our self-storage in South Pedroia. Once we went down there and Bernie tried a few on, looking very sharp, in my opinion.

The red light stopped flashing. We moved in closer, saw Dina getting off her bike and carrying it up some steps to the door of one of the loft buildings. Bernie pulled right up on the sidewalk and stopped the car. I just loved when he did things like that! Dina turned and saw us, her eyes wide and dirty pink like the sky. She whipped around to the door and started fumbling for keys, losing her grip on the bike at the same time.

“Chet!” Bernie said. “Go.”

Already on it, in fact halfway up the stairs. I vaulted over the bike, which was clattering down, and hit the landing right between Dina and the front door, twisting around to face her in one smooth motion. Chet the Jet! I knew “go,” baby. Dina took one look at me and booked, back down the stairs. Bernie was there, ready and waiting. Team! He grabbed her, not hard, by one arm. Dina struggled, got nowhere, then suddenly lashed out with the keys, maybe trying to swipe him across the face. But Bernie’s too quick for that kind of thing-we’re pros, after all, worth mentioning even with the possibility it’s come up before-and a moment later the keys lay in the gutter.

Dina kept trying to get free. “I’ll scream,” she said, although why not scream it instead of just saying it?

Funny thought, and maybe Bernie’s too, because he told her, “Go ahead.”

No screaming happened. Also Dina stopped struggling. A light went on in a window across the street.

“Would you prefer talking in private?” Bernie said.

“About what?”

“Your lies and evasions,” Bernie said.

Dina started to open her mouth, like maybe a scream was coming after all, but it didn’t.

Dina lived on the top floor of the building. No elevator-fine with me-so we climbed the stairs, Dina first with the bike, then me, then Bernie. He offered to carry the bike. Bernie could be a real gentleman: too often that got lost in the shuffle.

Dina turned out to be one of those shufflers. “Fuck you,” she said over her shoulder. She grunted her way up the stairs, bike over her shoulder.

Sometimes when people invite you into their place, they say, “Coffee? A drink, maybe?” and often, “And how about Chet? Can he have a little something?” But not this time. Dina had a small apartment with lots of plants, so many that it smelled like outdoors, kind of confusing. We found places to sit in all the greenery.

“I’m sure you know,” Bernie said, “that there’s no statute of limitations when it comes to murder.”

“What are you talking about?” Dina said. She had dark patches under her eyes, the way humans did when they get tired. In the nation within we just go to sleep, but I’m sure there’s no right or wrong way. “I never murdered anyone.”

“Maybe,” Bernie said. “But you’ve been evasive-at best-and that makes you suspect in my book. And a suspect plain and simple to the homicide squad-they tend to paint in broader strokes.”

Wow. I didn’t follow that at all. Bernie was cooking.

“I told you everything I knew about Carla,” Dina said.

“With the omission of one key fact,” Bernie said.

He paused and watched her face. So did I. She showed nothing that I could see. Women could be tough cookies, just as tough as men, although in my experience with cookies-let’s save this one for another time. Dina was a tough cookie; leave it at that.

“Carla’s not the only murder victim in this case,” Bernie went on, “not even the only murder victim who was also a friend of yours.”

One of Dina’s eyelids twitched, always a promising sign for us.

“There are three victims,” Bernie said. “You knew two for sure, and I’ve got a hunch you knew the third one as well.” Bernie: a great interviewer, and right now-at the top of his game-he was something to see.

Dina’s eyelid twitched some more.

“How about we start with the first one-your closest childhood pal?” Bernie said.

“I already told you,” Dina said. “Carla went off to the magnet school and-”

Bernie held up his hand in the stop sign. “I’m talking about April Spears,” Bernie said. “Wasn’t she your oldest pal?” He paused. “Her mother thinks so.”

Dina’s eyes shifted. That’s a human thing for when they’ve got to come up with something real fast. Bernie says that if they’ve shifted their eyes, they’re already too slow.

She looked at him. “Why do I always get the relentless type?”

“Maybe there’s something in you that discourages the others,” Bernie said.

Her face went white.

“But none of that matters right now,” Bernie said. “What matters is why you didn’t tell me about April.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Not in so many words,” Bernie said. “But we were all around it. For example, you were vague about the Flower Mart, pretended it meant nothing to you. Care to revise that statement?”

Dina said nothing.

Bernie lowered his voice, just at the time when you might have thought he was going to raise it. “Your best friend was stabbed to death and tossed in the trash, Dina. Come on.”